Milkshake #3: Espen Gleditsch, Ole Martin Lund Bø, Linn Pedersen, Hannah Whitaker
We are celebrating our new gallery with a collaborative exhibition with the artist-driven gallery MELK opening March 2nd.
MILKSHAKE #3 is a continuation of MELKs series of solo presentations in their project space in Oslo, and group exhibitions in Norway and abroad. The exhibition presents the five artists; Linn Pedersen, Emil Salto, Espen Gleditsch, Ole Martin Lund Bø, and Hannah Whitaker - all working with non-narrative photography.
All the artists works with photography in different ways, and have different focuses within the image making process. Emil Salto is working within photography's fundamental building blocks, making his images without a camera - only using a darkroom, light sensitive paper and chemicals. Whitaker takes this process a bit further when constructing her complex 4x5'' images. Taking multiple exposures using a hand-made film slide she makes images that flirt with paintings and collages. Ole Martin Lund Bø¸, also a painter, is interested in photography's relation to other mediums. Through many of his recent projects Espen Gleditsch has been investigating black and white photography in relation to colour, and who it has changed the history we as a society has created. In Faded Remains the viewer is presented with a series of images of ancient greek sculptures that now is white, but originally was painted in a variety of colours. Directly on the frame glass there is gradient foil representing some of these colours, and through the glass Gleditsch' creates a "in-frame-collage". Linn Pedersen takes the photograph's presence in the gallery space even further with her wall-to-ceiling installation that is made in direct relation to her photographic material.
The exhibition is highlighting the importance of differentiating the image and the photograph, content and texture, observing and experiencing when dealing with camera based representation.
Hannah Whitaker (b. 1980) is an American artist based in New York. The subjects in Hannah Whitaker’s photographic works are diverse—from female bodies to metal grades and sheets of colored paper. She captures her subjects through a laborious process of masking and multiple exposures, allowing her to combine them into single sheets of 4x5 film. While her work is analog in its construction, it is digital in its conceptual scope. She likens her step-by-step process to programming, drawing parallels between the computer and the camera.
Espen Gleditsch (b. 1983, Holmestrand) holds an MFA from the Oslo Academy of the Arts (2015). Gleditsch works with the limitations of the photographic medium, and the photograph as origin of various misinterpretations and displacements of meaning. Recent exhibitions include solo shows at Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen (2017); Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo (2016); Noplace, Oslo (2016), and group shows at Preus Museum, Oslo (2017); Blomqvist, Oslo (2017); Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo (2016). Gleditsch has produced several artist books, most recently "Polymorphous Magical Substance" (Heavy Books, 2017) and "Neues Bauen" (Multipress, 2016).
Linn Pedersen (b. 1982, Sortland, Norway) lives and works in Kristiansand, Norway. She holds a degree from Bergen Academy of Art and Design, as well as from Central Saint Martins, London. Pedersen often deals with photography's relation to sculpture and the physical space it's presented. Recent exhibitions include the solo shows Pupill at Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo, Plain Air, Entreé, Bergen (2015), Frokost i det grønne, Kristiansand Kunsthall (2015) and the group exhibitions Innland, CCC OD (2017), Tours, Stille Bilder, Lillehammer Kunstmuseum (2016) and Dislocating Surfaces, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo (2016).
Ole Martin Lund Bø (b. 1973, in Stavanger, Norway) is trained at the Academy of Fine Arts, Bergen, Norway. He is currently based in Oslo, Norway. Lund Bø is a multimedial artist working in the field of photography, painting, printmaking, sculpture and installation. He has had solo exhibitions in Norway, Berlin and New York. His work is represented in several collections and public commissions in Norway.